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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

Some of you will think these are Sunday-worthy, but I find the concept of cake-as-greasy-meat-products just a wee bit wrecky. (And yes, that does make me a hypocrite: I confess I've made a pizza cake before.)

Here we have a nicely rendered cake-that-looks-like-a-corndog, wishing itself (or perhaps another corndog not pictured) a happy birthday. Um, my brain hurts just a little, Nicole E. (Check out the source for some nifty giant cakes-that-look-like-donuts.)

A lot of you have submitted various versions of the burger n' fries model:

Most of these are pretty well-done [smirk], but Sara B. points out that the greasy shine and red icing "ketchup" are, shall we say, less than appetizing.

Plus, Thomas M. shows us that there can be such a thing as too much realism:

Those are REAL sesame seeds on the icing bun there. Here's hoping they didn't get carried away and salt the "fries", too.

Of course, on the other end of the spectrum is Emily B.'s find:

On the plus side, no one will mistake this for an actual burger. On the negative side, no one will mistake it for a cake, either.

Crafting a triangle-shaped slice of pizza from round-shaped cupcakes? Yeah, that's a good call. And why is the "crust" made from poo swirls?

Here Mrs. L. found the lazy version: it's a little sparse on toppings.

Of course, given that the "meatballs" are just mounds of solid icing, I guess we should be grateful there aren't more toppings. The crust looks better on this one, too.

Continuing in the Italian vein, spaghetti cakes are also pretty popular, and often disturbingly realistic. There's a great CCC example over on Flickr, but since I like to stick to pro creations (as opposed to procreations) here on Wrecks, I borrowed Melissa's of Wild Cakes to show you:

(Melissa, you let me know if you've changed your mind about that whole "use anything you want from my site" thing, k? And thanks for being such a good sport.)

Speaking of grease and sugar, there's always the ultimate in wrecky flavor combos: the Pork n' Tomato Stuffed Chocolate Iced Donut from Bompass & Parr. If you're starting a diet for the new year, I highly recommend you check that out. Your waistline will thank me.

I've been making pizza cakes for my daughter for a few years now - she considers it a vital part of the pizza/birthday party. I even bake it in a deep dish pizza pan. :D Orangy-red frosting with pale yellow frosting chilled and crumbled on top like cheese. (Used to make pepperoni from flattened gumdrops - too sweet!)

In Germany, and maybe other parts of Europe, spaghetti ice cream is really popular. It's vanilla ice cream put through a machine that makes it look like noodles, and then strawberry topping is poured over it with white chocolate grated on top to look like Parmesan cheese. It's quite delicious, and looks like the spaghetti cake here.

This particular cake was made for my own (spaghetti-obsessed) daughter. Once you cut it into slices, it doesn't resemble spaghetti so much, so there really wasn't any flavour confusion. As for the strawberry jam on top... it is regularly used as a filling layer in cakes so it really did taste yummy!

Karen... thanks! I'm not really sure what happened with the turtle's head but I am quite pleased with the rest of that one (thoug I still love the Grinch best at the moment! LOL)

I'm with Beth - how WERE those "fries" done? The ones in the second version were actually quite good - they were very realistic! But based on the display cooler and the oh-so-fancy price labels, I'm guessing this was not a fancy bakery. And I've never seen a grocery store that uses fondant....so any ideas??

These remind me of the year my grandma made me a "Cheeseburger in Paradise" cake for my Jimmy Buffett themed party. I thought it turned out beautifully. By the time it was sliced up it didn't look like a burger anymore, so it went down pretty easily.

That corndog cake is amazing. I mean, "yuck," but it looks realistic. I also thought the hamburger with sesame seeds looked good. Made me want to eat a quarter pounder, ya know? -Aaaaaand then I kept looking. That last burger looked...I don't know, no appropriate adjective comes to mind. And those pizza CCCs looked awful. Especially that one that looked all bloody. Ick. On so many levels, ick.

Oh wow, I saw this post just the other day, and I just went to a birthday dinner for a friend/family member (not sure which -- ahh, human relationships, you are always so cut and dried), and when the cake came out, it was the second to last hamburger. Complete with the sesame seeds.

Besides the weird factor, it was actually a pretty good cake; the frosting wasn't even too thick (which is often a problem with such novelty cakes). The sponge cake "french fries" were pretty stale, but really those were pretty much garnish.

The one thing we all noticed... the big pile of red frosting with the "fries" looked a little less like ketchup than the leavings of a very, very sick dog.

i don't know if it was a new episode, but on ace of cakes the other night they celebrated duff's birthday with two meat cakes: a scrapple cake and a meatball cake. i can't seem to find photos, but it was interesting alright. -carla c.

Hello! This is the creator of the CCC on Flickr. First of all I'm totally proud to be referenced on this site, even if it isn't in the best light, I'm fine with that! I'm actually starting culinary school (going for a degree in Professional Pastry & Baking) on Monday, so soon enough I WILL be a professional and you can comment on my wrecks any day! I'm usually pretty darn harsh on myself anyway.

Also, this site has officially given me the courage to go forth into cake decorating professionalism because if THESE people can sell their cakes, so can I! (I'm not sure if thats a good thing or not)

The Spaghetti cake was clearly for the celebration of one of the holy days celebrated by the Pastafarians, who believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His Noodle-y Goodness. Ra-men. (see www.venganza.org

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Unlike most commenters, the spaghetti cake does not shock me the least bit at all - where my family comes from, spaghetti ice cream is served at every single ice café. I mean, really. They always have it. So go to south-west Germany sometime to try it.

Here's a picture:http://www.lecker.de/media/redaktionell/leckerde/kochschule/handgriffe_1/spaghettieis/hbv_667/spaghetti-eis-6.jpg

I never thought of it as weird at all, until I went to germany with my boyfriend.